Maria Ressa of CNN reports that 9/11 paymaster Mustafa Ahmad is an alias for a "Sheikh Syed", a 28-year old Pakistani former student at the London School of Economics who was released from an Indian prison in 1999 after being bartered for hostages taken in an airline hijacking that was "strikingly similar to the four hijackings carried out on September 11." Ressa also links "Syed" (hereafter known as Omar Saeed) to the October 1 attack on the Kashmiri legislature.

The invasion of Afghanistan begins.

Pakistani ISI General Mahmud Ahmad (not to be confused with the 9/11 paymaster alias "Mustafa Ahmad") is suddenly dismissed by Pakistani President Musharraf.

October 9, 2001:

The Times of India reports that General Ahmad was dismissed "because of the evidence India produced to show his links to one of the suicide bombers that wrecked the World Trade Center. The U.S. authorities sought his removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 were wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by [Omar Saeed] at the instance of General Mahmud [Ahmad]."

The FBI had actually TRACED THE MONEY. Only they traced it a little too well, back to US ally Pakistan and to their intelligence service, the ISI.

"More than half of the criminal investigation team at FBI headquarters in Washington is dedicated to tracking the money, with many working from folding tables and chairs in the hallways."

"The FBI has told Congress that terrorists rely heavily on wire transfers..."

"Another key figure on the money trail is Ahmed, also known as Shaykh Saiid."

"Ahmed got as much as $15,000 from Atta and two other hijackers, Al-Shehhi and Waleed M. Alshehri, in the three days before the attacks. Officials in the United Arab Emirates have said they believe Ahmed left there Sept. 11 for Pakistan."

It is reported that the FBI and Justice Department have ordered FBI agents across the US to cut back on their investigation of the September 11 attacks, so as to focus on preventing future, possibly imminent, attacks. According to the New York Times, while law enforcement officials say the investigation of 9/11 is continuing aggressively, “At the same time… efforts to thwart attacks have been given a much higher priority.” Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller “have ordered agents to drop their investigation of the [9/11] attacks or any other assignment any time they learn of a threat or lead that might suggest a future attack.” Mueller believes his agents have “a broad understanding of the events of September 11,” and now need “to concentrate on intelligence suggesting that other terrorist attacks [are] likely.” The Times quotes an unnamed law enforcement official: “The investigative staff has to be made to understand that we’re not trying to solve a crime now. Our number one goal is prevention.” [New York Times, 10/9/2001] At a news conference the previous day, Ashcroft stated that—following the commencement of the US-led attacks on Afghanistan—he had placed federal law enforcement on the highest level of alert. But he refused to say if he had received any specific new threats of terrorist attacks. [US Department of Justice, 10/8/2001] The New York Times also reports that Ashcroft and Mueller have ordered FBI agents to end their surveillance of some terrorist suspects and immediately take them into custody. However, some agents have been opposed to this order because they believe that “surveillance—if continued for days or weeks—might turn up critical evidence to prove who orchestrated the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.” [New York Times, 10/9/2001] Justice Department communications director Mindy Tucker responds to the New York Times article, saying it “is not accurate,” and that the investigation into 9/11 “has not been curtailed, it is ongoing.” [United Press International, 10/9/2001]

CIA needs ISI more than ISI needs CIA
Author: Chidanand Rajghatta
Publication: The Times of India
Date: October 12, 2001

"Washington has been far more credulous about the ISI and has frequently entertained both former and incumbent spymasters, evidently under the illusion that the maverick organisation is still beholden to the CIA for the close ties developed during the golden 1980s decade. That was when the two organisations worked hand in glove to arm the Afghan Mujaheedin (Mooj in CIA parlance) against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Although the two agencies fell out in the early 1990s amid reports of financial skulduggery by the ISI and a spat over weapons inventory, especially missing Stinger missiles, Washington continued to engage important Pakistani spooks. It was mandatory for all new ISI chiefs to pay their respects in appearance at least - to Langley and Foggy Bottom, home of the CIA and the State Department respectively.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs chief spymaster Gen. Ziauddin was in Washington a fortnight before he (Sharief) was deposed and Musharraf's chief spook Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed was also here on the day of the terrorist attack and he (Ahmed) was sacked thereafter."

"And yet few seem to be troubled by the fact these militants were mentored and lavishly funded by the CIA. Long ago relegated to the memory hole are uncomfortable facts: Gen. Akhtar Abdul Rahman, Pakistani ISI’s head from 1980 to 1987, regularly met with bin Laden in Peshawar, Pakistan; the CIA essentially micromanaged Afghanistan’s opium production; the ISI trained “militants” (i.e., patsies and useful idiots) to attack the Soviet Union proper; well over 100,000 Islamic militants were trained in Pakistan between 1986 and 1992 in camps constructed and overseen by the CIA and MI6, with the British SAS training future al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in bomb-making and other black arts, etc., on and on, ad nauseam."http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7713

It is an indisputable fact of history that the CIA funded the Mujaheedin through the ISI. What is less known is that the CIA apparently has never cut ties with this group.

Al Qaeda and the "War on Terrorism"
by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, January 20, 2008

"The history of the drug trade in Central Asia is intimately related to the CIA’s covert operations. Prior to the Soviet-Afghan war, opium production in Afghanistan and Pakistan was directed to small regional markets. There was no local production of heroin. (Alfred McCoy, Drug Fallout: the CIA’s Forty Year Complicity in the Narcotics Trade. The Progressive, 1 August 1997).

Researcher Alfred McCoy’s study confirms that within two years of the onslaught of the CIA operation in Afghanistan, "the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world’s top heroin producer, supplying 60 per cent of U.S. demand." (Ibid)"

...Ironically, the US Administration's undercover military-intelligence operations in Bosnia, which consisted in promoting the formation of "Islamic brigades", have been fully documented by the Republican Party.... The RPC Congressional report accuses the Clinton administration of having "helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base" leading to the recruitment through the so-called "Militant Islamic Network," of thousands of Mujahideen from the Muslim world."http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7718
_______________Arabesque: 911 Truth